The theoretical basis of the study focuses on multicultural education and critical pedagogy by asking the following questions: what kind of education is given and who is setting up the rules for it in the public school? The main approach of the study does not interpret multiculturalism only as an ethnic question; it also considers each individual as a culturally diverse person. Other main concepts in the study are multiliteracy and critical thinking. In the study, the curriculum is considered as an official document that builds up expectations towards teachers and students. Furthermore, the study addresses the possibilities of contemporary art in the phenomenon-based learning in school art studies. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the social constructionist way of considering that reality is built with the use of language. The data was collected from different parts of Finland, from municipalities that had their own content descriptions for teaching art. The study was to set out the dominant, power related structures in the curriculums with the help of a discourse analysis.

In the light of the new national curriculum 2014 the study expects that the traditional school art teaching could be challenged with the help of culturally diverse (contemporary) art education. The analysis proposes that the new curriculums for 2016 do not support new ways of seeing and thinking, but rather they are still concentrating on modern art traditions by teaching technical and task accomplishing skills. Thus, instead of supporting the students´ own active role in making or thinking critically, this mode of teaching functions through a conventional framework. The teacher is as well expected to have independently internalized specialist knowledge about the multicultural discourse. The expectations that the curriculums are building up towards the teachers, disregard the fact that the actual teacher’s education might not be able to support this kind of expertise. In the grass root level the culturally diverse art education has its possibilities in the active exchange and discussion in social media between art teachers. The study will possibly give new discussion openings concerning the field of teacher’s education in Finland and point out some problems in the cultural competence of art educators.